Yep Rap!ShOO You BE Daam Right! The FE206E needs "beau coup" break in before it gives up its anal retentive and agressive personality but when it happens it is very very noticable. So Jason and Frank don't worry it will get better. I'd say 500 plus hours is good but I suppose it is how hard you push them in the bass (excursion) for the duration of the break in. You can very much hurt these with over excursion but I was surprised at how far they could be pushed. Lot's of us at DecFest '03 said the Fostex drivers opened up after the first day but Steve confirmed that this driver got much better after the whole gig was over and he started to spend hours and hours of serious listening to it. That is of course the time he came up with the "socket" phase plug and other tweaks like damping material on the whole motor/basket assy.Give em time!

I left mine on everyday while at work for weeks, months. They definitely got better in phases. There was the first week, then the first two months. They stayed that way for a year and a half. Then they changed yet again. fuller sound each time. Everything since the first month was great and got better since then. Don't overlook the felt on the 'phase plug' tweak...and tweaking your room...and the right tube recipe...

[quote author=Jason_S link=1138077160/15#17 date=1139451070]I put the EX transformers back in the select tonight. Absolutely, unquestionably a must do for a HDT/CS combo.

For those of you following the EX hum thread, I can't say I noticed any more hum. There is a bit of P/S noise at idle, but nothing you can hear once you get your head out of the speaker cone.

J [/quote]

I could be wrong (I often am) but I find a similar benefit from having the cs strapped, I think the speakers see the op/transformer as being twice the resistance than in normal mode and hence better suited to 8 ohm´s ???

I could be wrong (I often am) but I find a similar benefit from having the cs strapped, I think the speakers see the op/transformer as being twice the resistance than in normal mode and hence better suited to 8 ohm´s ??? [/quote]

It makes sense. You can't double power output without halfing a resistance/impedance somewhere.

Following the same theory tho, you should be able to strap an EX modded amp as long the load it sees is 16ohms or more. If you series 2 8 ohm drivers, I wonder if you could take advantage of the phasing shifts with having series drivers in something like an MTM.

I thought that for a "true" MTM you´d have the impedance going the other way ??? like in the MG944. I think it would prove difficult to match a tweeter to the 16 ohm load with out using a XO ??? The slp would drop by 6 db in going from 4 ohm to 16 ohm for dual mid-woofers. Not a bad thing really as the benefits of reduction in current drive and distortion, and enhanced damping factor might more than out weigh the loss in spl. You should be able to drive the zen harder with less distortion and thus make up for some of the spl loss ??? This is an interesting project Jason There would be some increase in bass handling but I think there might be some midrange loss Maybe DD or Chris could shed some light on this approach ???

It seems the design goal of some speakers is to create an 'artifical' ambiance by introducing a multipoint source, or a time delay of some sort. We all know about time aligning tweeters etc. Ziggy was explaing one of his designs where he uses 2 identical drivers, except one without the wizzer cone. The thought I had from that, is what would happen if you purposely time delayed one of them. The same concept here is to make a 'bad' thing work for you.Might work well if your using a bipolar design.

[quote author=Rap link=1138077160/15#22 date=1139566043]I thought that for a "true" MTM you´d have the impedance going the other way ??? like in the MG944. I think it would prove difficult to match a tweeter to the 16 ohm load with out using a XO ??? The slp would drop by 6 db in going from 4 ohm to 16 ohm for dual mid-woofers. Not a bad thing really as the benefits of reduction in current drive and distortion, and enhanced damping factor might more than out weigh the loss in spl. You should be able to drive the zen harder with less distortion and thus make up for some of the spl loss ??? This is an interesting project Jason There would be some increase in bass handling but I think there might be some midrange loss Maybe DD or Chris could shed some light on this approach ??? [/quote]The biggest problem with using a series connection in an MTM is the phase shift that occurs when you connect 2 drivers in series. One of the plus factors with the design is that the closely spaced mid/bass drivers on each side of the tweet help to control it's dispersion, forcing more of the hi freq energy into a wider pattern, 90 degrees from the "column" regardless of the tweet's unsupported pattern. The phase shift between the low drivers will cause a certain degree of smear to the hi freqs. Unfortunately, any lack of focus in the hi freqs is very noticeable.

I can't speak about Zen amps, but I would do whatever it takes to put all MTM drivers in parallel. If your amp can drive the impedance, you are much better off with that arrangement.

That´s what I thought ??? Parallel = 4 ohm for 2 8 ohm speakers. Thanks DD That would meen that to get the phase right you would have to use a complex XO? So in theory a lot of the benefits of the Zen would be lost. Jason there is always line array instead ???

[quote author=Jason_S link=1138077160/15#26 date=1139788106]Actually, what I was really thinking of, was some of the old 16 ohm drivers. An Zen EX is obviously an excellent choice, but strapped Zen Ex's might work well too.